


Your Magnum Opus is Shit

by LadyDorian



Series: When You're Gone [1]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inspired by Music, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7342561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyDorian/pseuds/LadyDorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick isn’t coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Magnum Opus is Shit

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what season 3 will bring...but here's something I came up with in the car while listening to Galileo Galilei. Feels like I haven't written in ages.

_Please, show me the exit_  
_The fake key that I shoved in is broken, it won't open_  
—[Galileo Galilei, “Blues”](http://ladydorian.tumblr.com/post/146678442030/baekout-track-%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9blues-artist-galileo)

 

He wakes to the sound of drums—an irregular beat that sends dull vibrations thumping through the walls. It’s not loud enough to make his teeth chatter this time, but it’s enough to wrest his thoughts back to the land of the living, so he groans and rubs at his eyes and then slowly peels the blankets away.

Summer’s been on that album for over a week. The lyrics are in some alien language, vocals oscillating between harsh shrieks and repetitive moans, but the songs all reek of the same angsty tone. Morty had stopped complaining about the noise after day one, when she’d cracked the bedroom door open just wide enough that he could make out her puffy eyes and tear-stained face. In his mind, he’d concocted some boring Young Adult plot device in which Summer uses the music to mask the sounds of her crying, and he repeats this tale whenever his annoyance starts to build again. Though each time it gets harder not to expand upon it, to imagine some cliched universe full of beautiful illnesses and unconditional love and family problems that always manage to resolve themselves. He shakes his head and pulls on a pair of pajama pants.

The din grows louder as he nears Summer’s room. With a pang of guilt, he considers checking on her, but decides against it. Things have been tense between them since he caught her stealing some of Dad’s government-issued antidepressants. _Useless_ , he thinks, and heads down the stairs.

_Everyone here is useless._

Morty sucks in a deep breath before padding towards the dining room, briefly glancing in the direction he dares not travel anymore.

Christ, it hurts, each time he comes down here. It’s like wading through a sewer of memories—everything good and bad, all that had been lost or willfully discarded, blended together into the same nauseating slurry. He finds it best to move through as quickly as possible: _Get in. Get food. Get some water. Get out. Don’t look. Don’t look._ It’s laughable that he’s come to need a strategy to navigate his own house, but the fact that he’s not currently holed up in his room like Summer or Mom proves that his plan is working. To some extent.

He pauses at the dining room table and thinks about Mom. How many empty bottles of wine will he find this morning? Or has she tired of the midnight trips to the kitchen and instead started piling them somewhere near her bed? He can’t imagine Dad would have cleaned the mess up; he’s too preoccupied with his new job. Though his absence doesn’t sting nearly as much as Mom’s. Or— 

_Don’t. Stop it._

Morty’s hand twitches, and he runs it over the dusty surface of the table. He can’t remember the last time Mom had cooked breakfast. He tries not to think of the answer. Instead, he reminds himself to bring something back upstairs for her to eat, even if that amounts to little more than leaving a plate of crackers outside her door again. It’s more of an effort than anyone else seems willing to attempt. Even the clinic had stopped calling after a while.

Summer’s angsty alien band notwithstanding, the house is quieter than it’s ever been. It's been two, three weeks maybe, but the sensation still strikes him as odd: Silence where there should be sound, stillness where movement once prevailed. Even the music seems too soft suddenly. It’s as if the entire upper level is trapped in different world, a different dimension—

_Morty…_

He thinks of openings the shades, of shaking the dust off the tablecloth, the furniture, of riding his bike to the store for some milk or eggs or whatever Dad can't be bothered to pick up after his universe-altering job. He thinks of just sticking to his original fucking plan like yesterday and the day before and so fucking forth. _Come on, Morty, get your shit together._ He sighs and turns his head towards the kitchen, and then the living room.

_Stop. Don't look. There's—_

Nothing. There's nothing; Morty knows that. The Galactic Federation had taken every last scrap of everything Rick had owned when they raided the property after his arrest. Down to the last spare bolt in the garage. Morty knows there's nothing to find, no reason to even _try_ searching, but it doesn't stop his feet from shuffling past the archway. It doesn't keep him from stopping and staring hopelessly at the couch they'd spent countless hours on watching _nothing, anything, everything_ they'd come across.

His fingers trail along the buttons of the remote, seeking a distraction. _Stupid._ He hadn't been able to turn the thing on since that day he’d come across a trio of Gromflomites discussing Rick’s sentencing on G’flox News, going on about how life imprisonment was too kind, how he should have been executed or at least tortured for the atrocities he’d committed, how even Bird Person had gotten off too easy.

If he looks to the corner of the room, Morty thinks he can still see glimmers of glass from where he’d thrown his drink. It had taken both Mom and Summer around twenty minutes to calm him down. When he slept that evening, his nightmares were full of Rick.

He tells himself he should have stopped him—knows deep down that _nothing_ can stop Rick once he’s made up his selfish fucking mind—and yet he can’t help but blame himself. He— _they_ , all of them—

There’s a framed photo on the TV stand; Morty knows it's there, had been avoiding looking at it whenever he’d passed the room, but today he walks over and reaches for it with numb fingers, sinking to his knees once he’s got it in his grasp.

It’s a portrait of happier times, back when the family had taken a trip to Hamster-in-Butt World ( _“Yes, Morty, that’s the name. Not every planet has to—to have a—some fancy-ass S-S-Star Trek name!”_ ). Morty is smiling in the corner, but his grin is nothing compared to the one plastered across Rick’s face.

He feels the tears coming long before he sees them. 

Rick isn’t coming back. He’s never going to compliment Mom’s breakfasts again, or drag Morty out of class for another adventure, or stumble into his room at 3AM and pass out practically on top of him. He’s gone, and even in Morty’s wildest fantasies, he can’t come up with a way to fix this. So he sits like the helpless idiot he is and sobs and thinks of all the time they’ve wasted, and how he’d be better off if he couldn't feel anything at all.

Just like they’re better off without him. Right?

_Chewed up like gum and spit back into this trashcan of a house—_

It’s the shittiest lie he knows. 

_I told you not to—_

But it's all he knows right now.

He stares at Rick’s smile until it blurs into abstraction. Upstairs, Summer’s door opens, flooding the room with her song.

“Morty!” She shouts it at the top of her lungs.

_If he squints, he can hear it; if he listens carefully, he can see the exit._

“We have to go!”

_It’s time._


End file.
